Product Development: Sea Power 101
Sea Power 101’s story begins in the late 1990s when the European Union launched a new initiative to help to find novel environmental products to assist in the cleanup of brownfield sites. Seaweed – a plant used as a soil amendment in coastal agriculture for millennia – was quickly identified for further investigation. By 2002, and following considerable investment from Brussels, a coalition of European scientists had arrived upon Sea Power – a new seaweed-based bioremediation agent. They subsequently submitted their new product for testing on a range of brownfield sites, each containing a different type and level of contamination.
One of these sites, a former petrol station at Ercolano in Italy, was chosen for a Sea Power trial using an in-situ bioremediation technique. Following initial testing, the independent assessors concluded that Sea Power represented the best method for the remediation of the site because “it acted as an extremely powerful biological active agent to stimulate the growth of the indigenous soil bacteria, by increasing contaminant bioavailability.” Furthermore: “With its surfactant properties Sea Power could also be used to decrease the surface tension of water and increase the wettability of soil particulates to release free product into a catchment zone.” Trials at Ercolano revealed that the product was able to reduce the TPH content of the site from 3200 mg/kg to 900 mg/kg in just seven days, and that it therefore represented the most effective bioremediation accelerant available. Results from other testing sites across Europe soon backed up these findings.
During the trial stage, Sea Power was also mixed with a blend of additional natural plant micronutrients to investigate whether its performance could be optimized in any way. The independent observers reported that both additives “had beneficial influence within the remediation process, but [that] they acted differently to one another.” The Sea Power “acted as a carbon source and made the hydrocarbons more bio-available for the bacteria;” meanwhile, the micronutrients “supplied the limited nutrients required by the bacteria to metabolize the hydrocarbons.” However, when applied together, the scientists noted how “the Ercolano soil bacteria became a potent microbial community for hydrocarbon degradation.” It was therefore concluded that the final product should combine both the original Sea Power and the additional micronutrients. This new formulation became known as Sea Power 101.
In 2007, Sea-Chem Ltd acquired the formulae for Sea Power 101 and began to take the product to market. Since that time, the brand has become increasingly well known within the remediation industry for delivering excellent cost and time savings for our clients in the treatment of hydrocarbon-contaminated sites. In 2009, we pioneered our Synergistic System, thus continuing a decade of constant product innovation.